Don't Give Up The Day Job, Love
by Dearest's Historic Cadre
Summary: Jack Sparrow met a beautiful and angry lady pirate and from that moment, his life changed. NO HE BLOODY WELL DID NOT. Barbossa meets a very ineffectual and very plain lady pirate and does his best to ignore her as she charges about trying to be a Mary Sue
1. mariella suzanna lovehaste

"Man overboard!"

Captain Barbossa tried to ignore this cry, as he was peering with exaggerated scrutiny at an ancient map covered in indecipherable scrawls. It had been some weeks since he had mutinied against Jack Sparrow and left him on that balmy, palmy, godforsaken island, and already he was regretting not asking Jack for clearer directions to the Isla de Muerta. Jack's notes were no help- they resemble the mirror writing of Leonardo da Vinci after he'd taken some bad acid and then discovered he had nothing but chicken claws to write with.

However, the next line forced him to look up. "Hang on- it's someone from the wreck we caused yesterday! Haul the weevil up!"

Oh blast, he thought, time to do the old Intimidating Pirate Captain act. Better go outside and make an impression. "Come Jack," he commanded the monkey imperiously. It gibbered inanely and handed him an apple. He sighed, and limped out unaccompanied.

The 'weevil' was standing on the deck, shivering under a foul smelling coat that belonged to a member of his crew and not quite meeting the stares of the men. It was female, just about. It sneezed then glared at him defiantly.

"Are you the captain of this ship?" it demanded in a voice so jarringly, neurotically well-bred Barbossa had to fight down the urge to do a mad little dance and start speaking patois.

"I am the captain of the Black Pearl," he instead confirmed, smiling his Lascivious Pirate smile. "Who be ye?"

The 'be' beside the 'ye' was a mistake. She was frostily forming a perplexed expression and was probably going to ask for a translation. He sighed again, and re-asked, "Who are yer?"

She brightened horrible, then cleared her throat. "I am Captain Mariella Suzanna Lovehaste, of the pirate ship _Mystic Waters._"

"Aye," Barbossa said. "We sank you yesterday in a two minute battle." 'Battle' was putting it a bit strongly. 'Putting a ship out of its misery' was closer.

She gasped. "You are my nemesis!" she cried. "I must face you in armed combat, and seek my vengeance!" With a flourish she had clearly practised, she drew the most impressively decorated sword Barbossa had ever seen. Some of the crew with a strong sense of theatre gasped and drew back, but spoiled the effect by grinning.

Barbossa delicately reached out, took the sword off her and flicked the blade. It went _doing_. He met her eyes. She reddened.

Captain Lovehaste, or 'Deathwish' Lovehaste as Barbossa was mentally christening her, was not simply slight and slim of build, but sparse and spare, even bony and brittle. God alone knew Barbossa wasn't a fan of large women (behind about fifteen layers of clothing and a beard you could swaddle a medium-sized dog in, he was quite a small man, with dear little feet that were quite extraordinarily ticklish), but he liked women to have a _bit_ of substance to them. Captain Lovehaste had thin hair of a mousy brown that stirred like well-worn sheets on a washing line in the breeze, thin lips and a thin nose, clear but small eyes, absolutely no breasts to speak of (the monkey had bigger mammary glands than her), and it was impossible to tell the difference between her ankle and her calf except by guesswork, aided by the dreadful leather breeches she wore. Even a pout would have done. Even a more original personality. The only thing full and voluptuous about her was her eyebrows- or rather her eyebrow, a huge dark brown smudge above her lids that looked like a hirsute slug.

He shuddered, and handed back her sword. There was an awkward silence, then he addressed his crew. "As you were, lads…"

She seemed slightly thrown off course. "I expect," she said, "you'll want me to do some back-breaking drudge work?"

Barbossa shrugged. "Wring yourself out and scrub the deck then."

He wandered back into his cabin, the plaintive cry of, "But I'm your adversary!" floating behind him.


	2. dinner is served

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Aye?" thundered Barbossa, throwing down his set square and fixing a terrible look at the door.

A long forehead appeared, followed by an eyebrow, followed by the rest of Captain Lovehaste. Barbossa rolled his eyes and suppressed the new desire to run amok with his pen knife, gouging things and singing obscene drinking songs.

She edged into the room. She was so unbelievably pathetic Barbossa couldn't even bring himself to dislike her strongly enough to get her viciously killed. She was also carrying some rum, which was a saving grace. He took it off her as genteely as the circumstances would allow, and swigged.

She coughed. "Erm… dinner is being served."

"I eat in me quarters," he said dismissively. "Join the men. Help yourself to what you want- quite a lot of it's the stuff we salvaged from yer ex-ship."

For a moment he could see she was going to consider being angry at him (her eyebrow jumped in a most alarming way up and down, straining for her hairline then falling back, exhausted), but dismissed this and coughed again. "Erm… I suppose you'll ask me to dine with you?"

"Will I?" he exclaimed, a little aghast.

"Yes," she said, brightening up now that she was on surer ground. "That's the tradition."

He shrugged. You don't serve as first mate under Jack 'Delirium on Legs' Sparrow without developing a certainly resistance to the ridiculous, and having the scrawny Captain Lovehaste bleat at him through dinner was almost restful in comparison to what he used to get up to with Jack.

("Barbie!"

"Yes, cap'n?"

"I smell opportunity a-comin'."

"Aye, cap'n, and what does it smell like?"

"Coconuts, my salty sailing sanguine shark. Look. Over there. Harpoon me one for breakfast.")

He realised she'd just prompted him about something. "What?" he snapped, still recalling the terrible struggle with the coconit. ("The pineapples are coming! The pineapples are coming!" "It's fine, Jack, they only bite if provoked.")

"I _said_," she said petulantly, "I suppose you'll want me to wear a dress to dinner? One you have in your store of exotic treasures, mmm?"

Barbossa unsuccessfully tried to not shudder as an image of Mariella Lovehaste in harem pants and a pair of metal bowls floated past, on the word 'exotic'. "If it makes you happy," he mumbled. She beamed- apparently he was sticking to his half of the script- and skipped out.

Barbossa groaned and started thinking about ripping out people's stomachs and showing them their lunch before they died. It was one of his favourite pastimes, and thinking about it usually dispelled gloom. Not today though.

Half an hour later Barbossa was sitting before a laden table, picking at his meat and watching Captain Lovehaste primly cut her bread (her bread forgod'ssake) into little square inches. He fantasised about turning into a large enraged mallard duck and pecking her unfortunate-looking nose until she ate it with her fingers, sobbing in submission all the while. He couldn't help noticing she'd chosen a particularly resplendent dress of cream, with golden embroidery in a fleur-de-lis pattern, that was designed for a fuller figured woman. The occasionally _slosh_ rather disturbingly suggested that a tepid hot water bottle was doing the job of a pair of 36Cs.


	3. aha!

Barbossa kept late hours. You had to do the stereotype properly, or you may as well hock it all in and become a lawyer.

It wasn't so much curiosity as much as glum, half-baked interest that led him to rummage in Lovehaste's pockets. He found what he thought of as a 'wimmin's pistol' (pearl-plated, small, dainty, absolute crap for defending yourself but excellent accessory with the right shoes), a handkerchief ruined by seawater, the shattered remains of a compact mirror, and an expensive leather wallet with nothing in it except a few corroded farthings and a little portrait depicting two women.

One of them was clearly Mariella Lovehaste- the eyebrow gave her away like a shot. Standing beside her was a babe of such unholy beauty Barbossa felt something hot and heavy stir in his stomach, and he was pocketing the picture before he could stop himself, whistling badly.

He glared at the sleeping Lovehaste, who was snoring with her mouth open. The babe had borne a familial resemblance to her. Perhaps… just perhaps…


	4. morning incident

The crew was awoken to the sound of high-pitched, hysterical screaming.

"You beasts! You rotters! Put me down!"

There were some muffled thud, the organic thump-crunch of bone on wood, and the familiar litany of Ragetti: "Argh, me eye! Me eye!"

Barbossa groaned. He was lying face down on his bed- not such a good idea, as try as he might, he simply could not introduce the idea of _washing sheets_ into his mens' minds. There were _things_ snooping about under his body, leading blameless insectile lives and looking at the buttons on his nightshirt. He rolled over (ignoring further shrieks of outrage and agony, like a good pirate captain) and breathed out bitterly. Jack had never had this problem. Admittedly, his sheets were never washed either, but it didn't matter as Jack never slept in the Captain's Bed. He'd fall asleep curled around a bottle of rum, or on his feet (at the helm), or in an awkward foetus position in the ship's cat's basket with the cat snoozing peacefully on his face. Barbossa could even remember on more than one occasion Jack had burst, drunk as a buccaneer in a brewery, into the crew's sleeping quarters and demanded that Barbossa 'shifty up' in his hammock and let him share. Barbossa used to stand this as good naturedly as possible, but Jack snored. Really, really loudly.

He got up, stood up, scratched himself (which is the pirate equivalent of 'having a shower', unless it rains) and milled towards the door. As soon as he opened it, he snapped erect and adopted the Cold-Hearted King of the Sea stride. His calf twinged in protest.

There was a little scene from some peculiar tragedy being acted out on the deck, watched in amused silence by most of his crew. Captain Lovehaste was, of course, at the centre of attention. Ragetti was trying in vain to dodge her surprisingly accurate kicks and flails. One of his eyeball sockets was empty- Barbossa wondered where Jack the monkey had taken it. Pintel was trying to hold the skinny body down by pressing his full weight onto her friable shoulders. Occasionally he'd shout, "Stop _hitting_ him, you little witch!" just to add pathos.

"SHUT UP," Barbossa hollered. Lovehaste slumped and gaped at him. Pintel dropped her and lumbered over to Ragetti, who used the ceasefire to burst into tears.

Barbossa strode up and picked up the hapless girl by her nose, which was admirably suited to the task. He noticed a film of sweat had formed on her forehead and was trying to run down her face, but her eyebrow was getting in the way. "What is the meaning of this conduct, ex-Captain?" he asked, putting special emphasis on the 'ex'.

She drew herself up. Barbossa noticed gloomily she was almost taller than him, and the tendons on her neck quivered when she was angry. "I was _frightfully_ awoken," she snapped, "by a member of your _beastly_ crew trying to- trying to impugn my virtue!"

Barbossa fixed her with his trademark Steely Eye. It worked, thank God, and she seemed to lose several inches. "Firstly, Lovehaste," he said coldly, "what in the name of the seven oceans makes yer suppose any man on this ship would want to know yer that well?" Titters from the crew, but she flashed him a significant look, one full of innuendo, and he immediately felt horribly, horribly nauseous. _Please, please, I'll sell me soul twice over and give up me man-bits to charity for that not to mean what I think it means._

Nevertheless, he continued. "Secondly, how d'yer know it was yer virtue he was seekin'?"

She opened and closed her mouth. She seemed to think. She opened and closed her mouth again. Barbossa fought back the urge to pop a penny in the back of her throat and see if she could make it disappear and then come out through a nostril.

Finally she spluttered, "He- he ought to be flogged at once. He- he laid his hands on me."

"I _never_!" wailed Ragetti, sobbing anew. "I only touched the non-naughty bits, like you told me to!"

Barbossa was not allowed to squirm. Pirate captains do not squirm. It is a physical movement they cause, not suffer. However, every single one of his toes curled up and refused to come out.

"'You' told 'me' to?" Lovehaste said, bemused.

Barbossa swung round to look her her. "I gave him specific orders to 'lay hands' on yer, Lovehaste. Fer good reason, too."

She inflated again. "Aha! I see where this is going!" she growled. "So, Mr Scary Pirate Captain, are you afraid to take me yourself! Are you afraid... of THIS!"

The next moments are best described in slow motion. Lovehaste, who had clearly been reading a lot of steamy, romantic novels with bold, bosomy female heroines in them, had reached for her blouse to rend it open. This would have been very impressive if Lovehaste had anything underneath, and if she knew how to go about rending. No one had warned her bold, bosomy female heroines have to spend three years at a finishing school perfecting their blouse-rending, shirt-ripping and skirt-tearing. Lovehaste instead got a nail (broken from a hard day's scrubbing the deck) caught on a button, and had succeeded only in hurting herself and revealing a respectable inch of vest.

She seemed confused, because her blouse had definitely _made_ a rending noise. She was unaware that this was actually a dry retch on Barbossa's part. As she looked down to see what the problem was, Barbossa took a step backwards. Unfortunately, Jack the monkey was behind him, playing with Ragetti's wooden eye. Ragetti gave a joyful whoop of, "Me eye!" and leapt for it, knocking Barbossa forward again, into Lovehaste. Fortunately, Ragetti's leap had also knocked Pintel, who was comforting him, sideways, and Pintel ended up sandwiched between Lovehaste (suddenly shrieking once more) and the now-furious Barbossa.

Barbossa recovered first. He barked at his men to get on with their duties, which they obeyed promptly (his heart swelled slightly- what a lovely crew he had, such sweet guys, so nice of them to mutiny with him etc.), and knocked Pintel efficiently out the way. He didn't bother with the nicety of nose-hauling this time, but simply dragged Lovehaste up by whatever skinny appendage his hand came into contact with first. She made a weird ululating noise, then caught his eye and wisely went quiet.

"Ragetti," he hissed softly, not breaking contact with her. "Hold out your hand."

There came a little whimper from behind him. "Yer not going to slap me, are yer, Cap'n?"

"Ragetti, do what Cap'n says," wheedled Pintel. "It'll be over quicker that way."

Barbossa bit his lip, irritated. I should have left them with Jack, he thought. They were on the same mental wavelength.

"Show me what's _in_ yer hand, ye bilge rat," he snarled. Ragetti scuttled forward and anxiously thrust something silvery between Lovehaste's and Barbossa's nose.

She went cross-eyed in an effort to see it. "Tweezers?" she said, hesitantly.

"Aye. Tweezers. For yer eyebrows, Ragetti's a dab hand at usin' them."

Ragetti beamed.


	5. a tea party

The day passed relatively pleasantly after the tweezers incident. Lovehaste had turned a fantastic new shade of magenta, mumbled a rapid apology and occupied herself mending nets, avoiding the eyes of the rest of the crew, all of whom burst into muffled snorts every time they laid eyes on her. Barbossa had made a routine inspection of captured booty, and it turned out half of the barrels labelled GUNPOWDER from Lovehaste's ex-ship, _Mystic Waters_, were not full of gunpowder, but tea. (This completely failed to surprise him.) Tea was an immensely valuable commodity, and would fetch a high price at the next port.

Barbossa was, not to put a point too fine on it, chuffed. He said, "Arrr!" as loudly and as piratically as he possibly could, then feeling this was not enough, strode back to his cabin, bounced on his horrible bed and shouted, "ARRRRR! I BE A RICH PIRATE CAP'N!" He hurried outside to announce it to the men. Soon the wind was torn asunder with delighted cries of, "Arrr! Har har, me hearties, arrr!"

The wind had died down a little by four o'clock and it was no longer necessary for every hand to be on deck. It occurred to Barbossa the best way to celebrate this unexpected windfall was to have a tea party. Stolen china tableware was fetched from the hold; rainwater was boiled in cavernous saucepans; a delicious cup, steaming and smelling more beautiful than a lady's scented neck, was handed to each pirate.

Barbossa lounged against the rail, sipping delicately from a bone-china tea-cup with his little finger sticking out. The matching saucer had been filled with lukewarm tea for the monkey, which was reverently washing itself with it. He had not felt so content for a very, very long time. His men were singing a song about tea, so evocative of the heavenly drink itself he could feel his heart trying to burst through his shirt.

"_Common sense tells me life's fleetin',_

_And logic says I should despair!_

_But give me a mug-ful_

_Of this sweet leafy stuff, oh,_

_And I'll tell 'em I've nary a care!_

"_I've got a wife, she is lovin',_

_And she washes me socks with her tongue!_

_But I'd thrash her thrice over,_

_Yes, I'd strike and I'd scold her_

_To die of tea filling me lungs!_

"_I've got a mistress, she's yummy,_

_I eat her like peaches an' cream!_

_But I'd hack her to pieces,_

_From her hair I'd make fleeces_

_To stay trapped in this tea-scented dream!_

"_Jesus wants me for a sunbeam,_

_The good Lord will forgive me crimes!_

_But I'll kiss the devil,_

_With Dave Jones I'll revel,_

_If they'll grant me eternal teatime!_

"_So you see, dear friends, I'm a lost cause,_

_A pirate marred indelibly!_

_I'd dice off me soul,_

_I would pay any toll_

_For a sup of that glorious TEA!"_

Barbossa, who had helped Swingin' Abraham Swift write the words back in the 1690s, joined in for the last verse with gusto.

He'd been made first mate to Swift after the initial mate had been found strung upside down from the crow's nest. (Not that Barbossa had anything to do with that. Oh no. Not a nice person like Barbossa.) Back in those days, of course, Barbossa was still doing a lot of ship-jumping, never climbing higher than the rank of first mate, because that made it harder to change vessel at every port. Even though he was starting to lose his youth at that point, he still harboured the youthful hope of finding-

"Ahem."

Barbossa turned away from the interruption and made a special face, the face of a man restraining himself from yodelling and beating his chest with insane abandon before throwing the interruption-maker overboard. He turned to look straight into the eyebrow of a pink and shiny Lovehaste, who was squirming uncomfortably in her breeches. He shuddered.

"Aye?" he demanded, wanting to get back to the internal monologue.

She paused, wriggled a bit more, then said, "Ahem. All this tea."

"Yours," he said helpfully. "And now mine. Hoorah." He toasted her with the teacup, but she just carried on wriggling as if she had something awful trapped between her thighs. "Don't yer like tea?" he demanded. "Yer English, ye ought to."

"I do," she muttered, growing yet more shiny, so that her face as well as her personality began to resemble a waxwork. "But... it does tend to, ah, go straight through one."

It took a while for Barbossa to comprehend what she was gabbling about. "The bilges are downwards," he said politely, "as always."

"They're filthy!" she burst out, a tinge of green appearing in her face so that she looked like a shrimp that had just swum through algae. "They're full of, of, of _filth_!"

"That's what the bilges are for!" Barbossa replied cheerfully.

Lovehaste looked revolted. "In _my_ ship we had a mechanism involving sea water and a lot of tubs and tubes."

"And _your_ ship is currently sharing this marvellous achievement with the seabed," Barbossa said silkily. "We are _pirates_, ex-Captain. We don't appreciate the wonders of plumbing. We don't even wipe."

Lovehaste gave him an agonised look and lurched off.


	6. barbossa rum lovehaste argh argh

Evening fell with a crash. The wind picked up again, and with it Barbossa's desire to make some sense of Jack's maps and set sail for the Isla de Muerta, once they had sold the remaining tea. He stared blindly at the maps.

_Come on now_, he thought. _Think like Jack would._

He continued staring, vacantly, for five minutes. Then he abruptly stood up and marched out, returning with a bottle of rum, which he downed unceremoniously and slammed onto his desk.

_Right. Start thinking like Jack _now

It was no good. Instead of thinking like Barbossa trying to think like Jack Sparrow, he was now a drunk Barbossa trying to think like Jack Sparrow whilst trying to remember to think things like, _Do not sing 'Betty, Bitch of the Ocean',_ and _Do not immediately relax all bladder muscles_.

He swayed. "Oooh," he muttered, "I don't feel very well."

"Erm, am I interrupting?" asked an all-too-familiar voice.

Being inebriated had robbed Barbossa of some of his self-control. He yowled softly and banged his heels against his chair legs. He would have given anything for teeth resilient enough and jaw muscles tough enough to eat the desk. "What do yer _want_, ex-Captain?" he demanded, letting bitterness drip off his words. "Have ye come with plans to spray the ship with perfume so that 'tis more agreeable to yer nose?"

"It's time to dine," Lovehaste said coldly, and stalked in awkwardly (she was wearing some sort of duck-egg blue gown with French lace, which contrasted oddly with her uneven tan and the steady accumulation of dirt on her face and hands). Ragetti and some other random deckhand wandered in after her, carrying supper for two on a tray. They reverently placed it on the dining table and watched Barbossa anxiously. Lovehaste hovered behind her chair. Barbossa sighed heavily- obviously he was going to have to put up with this for the second night running.

But was it so bad? After Jack? (Lovehaste was pouring him some wine. Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound. He downed it, and grinned at her appalled expression. "Trying to get me drunk, Lovehaste?" "I- er- that is- no!" "Good. I'll have another glass, if yer please.")

When he'd jumped ship from Swift to Gosander, the desire to find the pirate father who had left the family once and for all when he was thirteen still burned strong, but now with a pessimistic edge. Decades he'd searched, full decades. The old man was probably dead. (Lovehaste was saying something. "Wha?" he asked. "I _said_," she said petulantly, "do you really find my eyebrows that offensive? Because... for you..." "Do it for yerself," he said hurriedly. "Ye don't need to bring me into this." "But I want to," she said, giving him what he thought of as Cow Who Has Just Been Surprised From Behind eyes. He pushed away his meat, his appetite suddenly vanishing.)

Gosander was not a good captain, and within a fortnight of Barbossa joining his disgruntled crew, he had attempted to board another pirate ship, which turned out to be _The Black Pearl_, and had got himself exploded. No-one was injured except himself and the then-mate of the _Pearl_, who had been struck through the heart by Gosander's thighbone. (Barbossa realised he must be _really drunk_, because suddenly, Lovehaste was several seats close. She was smiling. It was the most dreadful thing Barbossa had ever seen.)

What really impressed Barbossa at the time was the captain, a cheerful, drunken, wobbly-legged man had actually given the defeated crew a chance to surrender and not be tortured. At that moment, Barbossa felt like he'd been given a new lease in life. It was honour and gallantry he'd never experienced before. He had clambered aboard, seized the captain's hand and demanded to replace his first mate, wild admiration clearly rampant in his eyes. Instead of looking amused or disgusted, the dreadlocked, handsome and clearly bonkers captain had just looked politely perplexed, then said, "Course, matey. Welcome aboard." (Lovehaste whispered, "I know how you feel. I feel it too." "Indigestion?" gabbled Barbossa. "I'll send for some hot water bottles, that always helps." "Oh, you silly captain," she purred, or tried to purr. It sounded like she had a bad cold and was speaking through a curtain of phlegm. Barbossa felt oddly as if his colon had been replaced with ice.)

Barbossa had abandoned his quest for his father on that very day. In fact, being first mate to the madcap Jack had made him feel very regretful and remorseful for having never been a father himself. In a way, being first mate to the man was rather akin to being his parent.

"Barbie!"

"Aye, cap'n?"

"My hat! It is dirtied! No, worser still than that. It is profaned!"

"It'll wipe off beautifully when it dries, Jack."

"Curse your wiping! It must be laundered!"

"We are possessed of no laundry, cap'n."

"I refuse to sail without a nice hat. If I get shot today by the Royal Navy, they will look over my body and say, 'Coo, that Captain Jack Sparrow, he was the greatest of the great but he had a dirty hat. Coo. Let's write that in the history books.'"

"'Coo', Jack?"

"Honest employment makes a pigeon of a man, Barbossa! Now stop trying to change the subject!"

"Just use my hat, Jack..."

And there were days when Jack would awake from a hangover and deal with it by drinking solidly for three days. At the end of this rum-guzzling marathon, he would throw his arms about Barbossa's neck and burble, "Oohyeraluvlyfella, loveyer, trustyer, loveyertopieces. Marry yer if yer weren't so ugly!" Then he would belch enormously and try to make Barbossa dance with him. "Hwun htwo three fourrrr... nooo yer fool, yer sposed to _spin me_. I'm a pretty maiden! Spin me!" When Barbossa, usually sober, solemnly refused and tried to make Jack go to bed, Jack would run off into the darkness at the other end of the ship, and happily sit on the prow, singing tunelessly to the dim and distant horizon, watching anxiously by Barbossa, who was always convinced Jack would fall off if he took his eye off him.

("It must be so long since you last... enjoyed a woman," murmured Lovehaste, stroking the back of his hand. He hastily withdrew it and sat on it. "That's a fact," he said, mentally adding _and I'm not enjoying this one either._ "Well, I do owe you a thank you for saving me from drowning..." Barbossa tried to protest as she leaned in for the kill but it came out as a hiccup.)

For the first year, despite the trials and tribulations Jack forced on him, Barbossa could not have been happier. Aboard _The Black Pearl_, he found something that he'd never had before- a family. More importantly, he'd found someone to care for. Whatever history related, whatever it wanted to say to spite him, nothing could take away from him that first year when he had loved Jack- loved him like a dear friend and a son.

Unfortunately, love is a high-maintenance pet and, if it doesn't get exactly what it wants, it turns nasty and bites and scratches. Barbossa had found that out, and Lovehaste was about to.


	7. no manlove for you

Lovehaste kissed him on the lips.

"Eek!" she suddenly squeaked, and pulled away rapidly, clawing at her mouth. "Eek!"

Barbossa spat.

"You _bit_ me!" she screamed accusingly. "You _bastard_!"

"I had to!" he snapped back. "Ye slobbered on me! I am not an ice cream!"

She started yelling mad, incoherent things and he tuned out. The kiss had had the rather unfortunate effect of sobering him up and now he was transfixed by the enormous whitehead that was festering and growing in the corner of Lovehaste's mouth.

When he switched back on again, her last words made him think he hadn't bitten her hard enough. "...and if you can't accept the love of a woman, something dark and terrible must have happened in your past." Suddenly all the rage drained from her, abruptly as a dying man's drinking water sinking into desert sands. "Something did, didn't it?" she said gently. "Tell me about it."

Barbossa did not feel like relating either his father's prolonged absence or his second year aboard _The Black Pearl_ to a sex-crazed Lovehaste. He stuttered, "N-no, nothing like that."

"Sure?" she wheedled.

"Sure." The fires in her eyes flared up again, but Barbossa was feeling slightly too nauseous to shout for someone to come and throw her overboard before she did his head in. Quickly he added, "I- I like men." _Argh. Argh. Argh. What am I saying?_

Apparently he'd said the right thing, because suddenly her face lit up. "Oh!" she breathed. "Oh, I see! You're one of _those_ pirates!"

_Ouch_, thought Barbossa, _that stung. I don't even want to imagine what mental images she's having at the moment. _"No no no, I like women too," he amended. "But, ah, yer see, ah, I'm on the 'liking men' part of my cycle at the moment." He cringed. This was even worse than the kissing.

She was starting to look thoughtful and mildly confused, and took a ladylike sip of wine. "That's not very canon," she said, slowly.

To Barbossa, a cannon was a big metal tube you put large iron balls into and promptly blew out again at high speed, preferably into something that went 'crunch' in a satisfying way. "Whee?" he asked.

"I mean," she said, adopted a schoolmarmy attitude that rather suited her, "think about it. What kind of fangirl wants to read about the slashy love affairs of an aged pirate captain? Now, if you were ravishing young women," she indicated herself with a deprecating little gesture, "that would be _most_ interesting to read about. The Evil Captain's First True Love. Betrayal and Betrothal on the High Seas. That sort of thing." She regarded Barbossa thoughtfully. "I can't see you being the subject of yaoi discussion forums anytime soon."

Barbossa had no clue as to what was going on. For a moment, there flashed a beautiful set of images through his mind- of the crew sailing to some enchanted spot wherein time could be reversed, of hurtling through hyperspace at a sickening speed, the past few weeks obliterated before his eyes, to the night of the mutiny, in which he managed to control his temper, and he'd still be with Jack and he _wouldn't_ be with _bloody bloody damned bloody bugger bloody_ Mariella Suzella Lovehaste.

"Not very fair," he said glumly. "That's prejudice against age."

Lovehaste smiled, and started to swagger out. "See you in the morning, captain," she said, unusually cheerful. "I'll get Ragetti to do my eyebrows, shall I?"

She winked, and was gone.

Barbossa crawled into bed and started to whimper.


	8. tribute to tribute

_Barbossa is sitting on a high music stool, getting to grips with a guitar. He has begun this by caressing it and announcing, "A guitar is just like a woman- ye just need to play it properly for it to make good noises." He then attempts a chord. Some awful twanging ensues and the invisible audience snigger. Someone passes remarks about Barbossa's virility._

_Jack Sparrow, who is hemming and hawing and doing voice exercises, does some complicated hand movement very close to Barbossa's face. Eventually Barbossa works out Jack would like to be handed the guitar, and he privately curses Jack for not just asking for it like a normal man. _

_Jack proceeds to play an improvised version of Cream's 'Sunshine of Your Love'. There is much applause and wolf-whistling and the occasional scream of a fangirl dying from terminal adoration. Eric Clapton runs onstage, kisses Jack passionately, and runs off. Jack passes the guitar back to Barbossa with an exaggerated wink, and promises, "Should sing like a birdie, mate." Barbossa wants to hate him, but finds his fingers have suddenly become possessed. Each one can play the guitar flawlessly, and each one appears to have the black spot marring a knuckle. Terrified, Barbossa fixes his eyes on Jack- his precious friend Jack, his darling son Jack, his lovely Jack, and whispers, "Eep." Jack, however, does not look round. He instead begins singing:_

"This is the greatest and best song in world... Tribute."

_Further applause, and the flat squeak of a copyright lawyer for Tenacious D being crushed underfoot by the fangirls who haven't already died a happy death._

"A long time ago," _Jack continues_, "me and me first mate Hector here," _and Barbossa feels the blush climb up the rope of his spine at the unaccustomed use of his first name,_ "we was a-sailin' down a wet and wild sea. All of a sudden, there slimed a slimy seabeast, from the depths of the sea."

_Davy Jones of course, thinks Barbossa, but his jaw seems to be clamped shut and he can't interrupt the all-powerful Jack. He desperately wants to recite Coleridge, 'Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea,' just so the fangirls will think he's clever and wail with love for him, but Jack has more to say._

"AND HE SAID... 'Play the best song in the world... or I'll eat your souls-ah.'"

_That was the worst Scottish accent I have ever heard, thinks Barbossa bitterly._

"Well, me and Hector," _argh_, "we looked at each other, AND WE EACH SAID... 'Aye, matey.'"

_Bet we didn't, thinks Barbossa savagely. Because you never say something as simple as 'aye, matey' if you've got a chance for verbose soliloquy._

"And we played the first thing that came to our heads. It just so happened to be... the best song in the world! It was the best song in the world!"

_Quelle surprise, thinks Barbossa. His fingers are dancing with demonic rapidity across the strings. He could swear the music is getting louder, and Jack's voice appears to be growing in volume too._

"Look into me eyes and it's easy to state, rum and men equals love, scurvy dogs equal hate. 'Twas the touch of fate..."

_Har har, thinks Barbossa, and ho ho, and hee hee. Give me a break. No, seriously, give me a break because my hand is hurting. Are those black spots... growing?_

"Twas a chance every hundred t'ousand years yer get, when the stars are glowin' and the planets are set, and the sea is wet."

_Barbossa would give his Megalomaniac Buccaneer Captain Cackle away for a five minute break from his melodious possession, so that he can hit his head against a healthy brick wall._

"Needless to say," _Jack goes on_, "the beast was stunned! He wriggled his tentacillies... and the beast was done. He asked us, '(peculiar squidlike snort), Be ye the Navy?' And we said, 'Nay, we are but pi-RATES!"

_And at this point Jack launches into some sort of quasi-operatic yodelling, before picking up where he left off._

"This is not... the greatest song in the world. Nay. This is just a tribute. Too drunk t'remember the greatest song in the world. Nay. This is a tribute... to the greatest song in the world, savvy? It was the greatest song in the world, savvy? 'Twas the best bloody sailin' song, the greatest song in the world, savvy?"

_Suddenly Jack begins to talk oddness. _"Ti Tuga digga tu Gi Friba fligugibu..." _and other such randomness. Barbossa finds himself providing some sort of nonsensical bass beat to this awful lyric-butchering. _"Bow. Bow. Bow," _he mumbles. Oh well. At least he's stopped having to play the guitar. Unfortunately his relief is short lived, as suddenly Jack whispers with impressive venom, _"Davy Jones!"_ and Barbossa is forced onto a virtuoso guitar solo. _

_Jack tosses some rum back from a bottle Barbossa could swear wasn't there when he was improvising._ "And the peculiar thing is, me hearties, the song we sang on that fateful night, it didn't actually sound ANYTHING LIKE THIS SONG!"

_Great, thinks Barbossa. Does that mean we're going to have to do another one of these once yer've sobered up? Incidentally, when have yer ever said 'me hearties'? Only pirates with serious personality problems say that sort of thing._

"This is just a tribute. You've gotta believe me! I wish you were there! 'Twas a matter of opinion! Ah! Fook! Good God! God fearin'! I bet you're surprised to find you can't catch me!"

_Don't, thinks Barbossa warningly, don't do the famous line._

"Whoop-a-lally! I'm found! I'm a lucky bloody pirate and I won't lie around! Savvy?"_ He swings round to face Barbossa, and screeches,_ "Savvy?"

_At this point, Barbossa finds his Jack's face is melting before his eyes. He also realises, too late, that during the course of the song, the black spots have been clambering up his body, congregating at the heart, so that it looks like a gunshot wound in his ribs. He faints..._

...and wakes up.

Barbossa unglued his eyes. Something demented had apparently cemented them together whilst he was sleeping. This same savage creature had filled his mouth with sludgy fluff tasting like the monkey's urinal, and his head with some huge, thumping, omnipotent pain.

He was quietly worrying about the possibility that Jack might have been discovered on his island and found already when Pintel burst into the cabins.

"Damn yer scabby hide man," roared Barbossa, which did horrible things to his hangover head. He longed for a pale, buxom wench with soft hands and lavender soap to massage his temples. He especially wanted the lavender soap. Lavender soap, he decided blearily, was the least he could ask for. "What in the name of mother and mistress do yer want this early in the morning?"

Pintel looked agonised. "A strange pink mist's descended all over the ship, Cap'n," he said desperately, "and I can't find Ragetti!"

"Put your boyfriend on a leash," growled Barbossa. "I don't have time to sort out your relationship troubles. Do I look like a lovely smiley agony uncle?"

Indeed Barbossa was not a smiley man. But Pintel was nothing if not a complete idiot, and ferociously protective of his cycloptic bosom buddy. "But the pink mist, cap'n?" he insisted.

Barbossa half crawled, half fell out of bed. "I don't know what it be," he muttered, "but I have no doubt whatsoever ex-Captain Lovehaste has something to do with it. Fetch her to me, so I can have her skinned."

Pintel appeared to go monochrome. This was the effect of his skin paling beneath the black grime. "Er... she's gone missing too, cap'n. She was last seen about to get her eyebrows seen t-"

He addressed this last remark to a Barbossa-shaped space in the cabin, because the captain had shown an impressive turn of speed in charging deliriously for the door and out into a frosty, decidedly rose-tinted fog.


	9. a tragically tragic moment of tragedy

"Oh… Mariella."

"Oh… Ragetti."

"Yer eyebrows look gorgeous, darlin'. Yer look like a finely plucked angel."

"And it's all down to you, my wonderful tweezers-wielding knight in armour."

"Heh. Knight _en amour_."

"Ah! You speak such divine French!"

"_Merci_. Me mother was French. She was _une dame loose_ on Tortuga."

"She must have been a very beautiful lady."

"Well, she had a lot of customers…"

"Yes, but her son is the most handsome man I've ever seen!"

"Oh Mariella!"

"Oh Ragetti!"

"LOVEHASTE!" bawled another voice in the distance. With great difficulty, Mariella tore her woozily adoring eyes away from Ragetti's mismatched ones. She wasn't surprised to be surrounded by pink mist (which was twinkling faintly and made little _ting-a-ling-a-ling_ noises when the sunlight hit it). Indeed, it was thickest around her and Ragetti.

"LOVEHASTE!" It was definitely Barbossa. Mariella recognised the inflection. Every time she spoke to the captain, she noticed he had a certain hysterical accent in his sentences. She put it down to high blood pressure.

True to form, the pirate captain strode into their section of the mist like some sort of horrible subterranean demon clambering out of a smoking hole. Mariella detangled herself from Ragetti's encircling arms and gave Barbossa a brave little smile. _Oh dear_, she thought, feeling the tragedy in the air start to blow away the pink mist, revealing a lot of confused pirates. _He has just found his true love in the arms of another. How can I tell him that we were never fated to be?_

Barbossa appeared to have been robbed of speech. He just stood, staring at the couple, breathing heavily in and out through his nostrils, and shading a deeper and deeper red. One trembling hand seemed to be toying with the idea of drawing his sword. Mariella had read the phrase 'apoplectic with fury' a few times, but had never seen such a first class example.

_He loves me so_, thought Mariella, and her heart twisted with tenderness. _He can barely control his passion_. _How I pity him! How I wish it could be some other way!_

Pintel appeared behind Barbossa and gaped, quite openly stunned. "R-Ragetti!" he exclaimed, in a rather high-pitched voice. "What are you doin'?"

"I 'ave found the woman what I love," Ragetti announced decisively.

Pintel was having none of that. "Don't be daft! She looks like a flat-chested mop having a bad hair day!" He seized Ragetti by the arm and dragged him away, to a litany of, "No! I don't _wanna_! She _is_ the woman what I love! Gerroff, meanie!"

Mariella had faith in Ragetti to escape his cruel friend's influence and return to her. In the meantime, she had to make the lovelorn Captain understand.

She opened her mouth and was very, very surprised when her voice came out male and piratical. It took her a few moments to get over this and realise Barbossa was speaking.

"Lovehaste," he was saying, in a cold, flat voice that betrayed the stormy, tragic battle raging in his chest far better than fervent, furious declamations, "I need to have a word with ye."

Mariella held her head up high, and followed him. She would try to let him down easy, but she had a feeling there was going to have to be drama.


	10. lovehaste redeems herself

_We've had some misunderstandings, but yer must remember, as Captain, I only want the best for my crew…_ No, she'd probably misconstrue that.

_I don't feel I can captain this vessel with ye two bringing down pink mist every time yer catch each other's eyes…_ No, she'd definitely misconstrue that.

_Have yer ever considered a woman of yer talents is best suited on land…?_ No, that would encourage her and would probably achieve the opposite result.

_We're going to be docking soon, to sell off that tea. Perhaps yer'd like to handle negotiations…_ No, that was too subtle.

_Get the hell off my ship_. No, still too subtle.

Barbossa stood behind his map-covered desk to address Lovehaste. This wasn't usual practice, but he felt a lot safer with a good solid object between them. There was no telling what she might decide he wanted her to do to him.

Lovehaste was giving him what she probably though was pitying, understanding smile, which made her looked as if she was straining. Barbossa's desire to rub her face in a pile of mud whilst dancing a hornpipe jig on the back of her head was only kept in check by the lack of mud in his cabin.

"Look, Lovehaste," he started, the weariness in his voice completely unfaked.

"Darling," she said, and he stopped short, revolted. "Darling," she repeated, as if the first time wasn't bad enough, "I understand how hard this must be for you."

_Yer do?_ Barbossa wanted to yell. _Then why haven't yer done the honourable thing and thrown yerself overboard?_

He settled on a tired, "Aye." She'd probably interpret it some perverse and unpleasant way anyway, but at least he wouldn't have hurt his vocal chords screeching blue bloody murder at her.

"What happened between us last night," she said softly, "was a heat of the moment thing. We both knew it could never last. Last night, we just needed to feel… each other. Are you crying?"

Barbossa had in fact found he had to force himself to swallow a snivel. Just the mention of a _possibility_ of 'feeling' Lovehaste made him want to rip off his arms and burn them, before skinning himself and hosing the inside of his skin down. "Gck," he remarked.

Lovehaste pressed on, relentless. "But Ragetti and I- we are true love. I can feel it in here." She rapped at her ribcage, producing a curious echoing noise. "I understand how it must hurt you."

"Hck."

Lovehaste looked him straight in the eye. There were tears brimming on her rather short lashes. Barbossa found himself wondering whether he could transpose her plucked eyebrow hairs onto her lashes to make them longer, then decided that such thoughts indicated he was in a state of nervous delirium and needed to be looked after. _Lavender soap_, he thought. _Just put me to bed with a bar of lavender soap, and maybe some very, very, very mild chicken broth_.

"Oh captain!" she exclaimed, quite carried away with herself. "Please try to understand!" And she lunged at him, banging her hipbone on the desk, her arms flailing to reach him.

Barbossa lost all self control and flung himself backwards. Jack the monkey screamed and pelted him with what was once a piece of fruit. He started to mutter to himself frantically, his body alternately suffering hot and cold flushes.

"Get out," he squeaked, between hiccups and gibbering. "Just get out."

"No!" The tears were gone now. She stood akimbo, although Barbossa was pleased to notice one of her fists was surreptitiously rubbing the hipbone she had banged. Hopefully there would be a nasty bruise there. "I won't leave you until you can come to terms with your loss like a man!"

Barbossa was not captain of _The Black Pearl_ just because he'd staged a successful mutiny. A certain amount of strength of mind had gone into to that too, _especially after you started to lose your faith in Jack_, his subconscious added treacherously. A few seconds breakdown was all he needed- now he was back on his own two feet, with a vengeance.

"Aye?" he barked, and flashed the Steely Eye. Lovehaste quailed and paled. "And exactly what have I lost? Eh? What in hell's name makes yer think that I'd shed a single tear if ye were to vanish from my eyes this very second, and never stalk the earth again? Why in heaven would I mind if you got your silly head cut open by a cutlass? Eh? Eh? When did you ever start being anything more than a nuisance? Where, ex-Captain Lovehaste, have you developed this awful belief that I GIVE A DAMN?"

She blinked.

"Um," she said.

"Ah," she said.

"Well," she said.

Then she did something that impressed Barbossa more than he ever though possible.

"You're really not handling our break-up very well, are you?"

He stared. _My God. She's either mad or brilliant. I know which explanation I prefer though._

Much to his consternation, she appeared to be having the same thoughts about him. "I don't understand," she said, sounding genuinely defeated. "Something just isn't going into your head. This. Is. Not. What. You. Should. Be. Doing. You're part of a Mary Sue fanfiction, okay? You've got to stop with this plot-resisting." She passed a pale hand over her long forehead, then her eye fell on the maps and she picked on up and waved it at him tiredly. "I mean," she continued, with all wheedle and drama depleted from her voice stores, "look at this. You can tell that this poorly written and much-riddled map wants you to move east-east-west through the Blackheart Capes, but you can't follow an easy story that any hormonal teenager can draft in under thirty seconds."

"What?" said Barbossa, almost at a whisper.

"What?" she returned in kind.

"What," he said, controlling himself with effort, "did you say about that map?"

She threw it down, missing an inkwell by inches. "It doesn't matter," she snapped. "What's important is that-"

"Show me how you worked that out," he said, still in the same controlled voice. "Sit down."

She sat.

He shut the door and turned back to her, wonder in his eyes.


	11. so long and thanks for all the tea

The tea fetched what Barbossa understood was called 'a tidy sum'. He didn't know why. He always thought all those zeroes made the page look messy.

He had insisted on buying Lovehaste a few dresses, not the kind that the women were wearing in Paris, but the kind at a quiet little dress shop in a corner which, it proclaimed on a quiet little sign, specialised in quiet little corsets for the, ahem, less endowed lady. It worked. Lovehaste could now only be mistaken for a cross-dressing male from a twenty metre or more radius.

"But these dresses won't be any good on a _ship,_" she said coyly, and touched his hand.

Barbossa gave it a steady, level glare until she coughed and removed it. "I know," he said.

Walking down the street together, emphatically not linking arms, they looked a strange pair. Barbossa, who walked like a sailor (swaying slightly, both from being marinated in alcohol and from being used to wandering around on a rocking ship), exuded malign authority like a bad odour. Lovehaste, bound up in her brand new dress and twinkling at horrified strangers from behind her tasteless lace fan, tottered along on precarious heels, walking like someone glad to be on dry land. Barbossa noticed that in her stride. It just made him more determined to install her on the earth once and for all.

He badly wanted a pint of beer- he knew a smelly, authentic pub quite near where the ale was half liquid, half sludge and the women were cheaper than a shandy- but Lovehaste had caught sight of a waterfront café where they could have a glass of expensive wine. They sat down and Lovehaste tried to order in the same appalling French as Ragetti would have. Barbossa grinned; evidently, during the final week it took the crew to sail to the port, Lovehaste had made sure whatever little story she thought she was living in provided her with at least one successful love interest. He couldn't help noticing her eyebrows were separate too.

(Incidentally, Barbossa's grin made the occupants of the surrounding tables feel amazingly uncomfortable and they hurriedly overpaid their waiters and left, feeling oddly as if they'd only just escaped with their lives. Barbossa had learned to ignore this, or he might have been quite hurt.)

They sat in the first comfortable silence to ever to pass between them. Barbossa, pessimistic in all matters regarding Lovehaste, decided to break it. "What's going to become of your Ragetti?"

She looked very pleased at the use of the possessive. "I promised him I'd write letters and send them to his mother in Tortuga, for him to read when he visits." She adopted the 'woe is me' look and Barbossa had to stay his boot from giving her a kick up the backside. "Though our bodies may be far apart and unable to share the same embrace, our hearts are tightly knit together, always. And I will send him some of my love poetry," she added, cheering up suddenly. "I've written over three hundred poems."

"Aye? That be nice." Barbossa wondered whether he should tell her that Ragetti couldn't read, but decided against it. "Ragetti'd be able to appreciate that," he said instead, with such sincerity that Lovehaste beamed.

"You know your crew so well, Captain, so I trust your judgement," she said, giving him a bright little smile.

Barbossa turned his head away and fiddled with his wineglass. (He'd accidentally chipped it by holding the damnfool thing too hard.) "Jack used to say that too," he mumbled. "Although I was 'Barbie' to him," he added, and scowled.

"Ragetti told me your first name was Hector," Lovehaste said, slyly.

He snapped abruptly back to the real world, spun round in his seat and fixed her with an utterly ferocious glare. "What of it?"

She pressed her lips tight shut, so that facially she looked like a shaved orang-utan. "Nothing," she said quickly, "nothing at all. It's a good name."

"Right." He slurped his wine viciously.

Lovehaste licked her lips a couple of times. The air of trepidation, like someone peering over into a bottomless abyss after the lollipop they just dropped down it, was annoyingly familiar by now. "Just ask me, Lovehaste," he sighed. "It's going to be about Jack, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," she admitted. "I mean, I have spent a full seven days reading his peculiar maps for you, which is an uncomfortable insight into how his (rather unique!) mind worked. Incidentally I still can't understand how you couldn't comprehend them. Seemed perfectly obvious to me, although," she batted her eyelashes so her eyes looked like a Venus flytrap having trouble digesting its food, "I _am_ a Mary Sue, and we can do anything."

"Aye, if yer say so," Barbossa replied. "What's yer question?"

"You loved him, didn't you?"

Barbossa carefully finished off his wine, poured himself another glass, handed the glass to Lovehaste and drank the rest of the wine in the bottle. She waited, unperturbed.

At length he said, "Yes. Don't yer go misinterpreting the meaning of the word 'love'."

"So, how did you love him?" Lovehaste asked, grinning.

"Don't yer go asking for further explanations on the subject, either."

Ragetti, or some crew member, must have taught Lovehaste tact as well as bad French, because she left that part of the subject alone. Unfortunately, a week is not long enough to teach some pupils _anything_, because her next question was, "If you did, why did you mutiny?"

Barbossa shrugged. "Order me another bottle and I might consider telling ye."

Over the second bottle, with Lovehaste increasingly out of focus, Barbossa felt better about talking about it. "Ye said I knew my crew well," he began, and hiccupped.

She nodded, which made him feel dizzy. _In my old age, I am a-becoming a lightweight_. "Well, I do. Because I care about each and every last man. They are a family to me. The whole _Pearl_ is my family. And Jack was, uh…"

"Your wife?" Lovehaste suggested.

"I preferred to think of him as my son," Barbossa said coolly. "Anyway. Yes. They were my family, and Jack was my love. My son. And yer see," he waved his arms about, hitting a waiter, "you see, when I first joined his crew- I'd been looking for my father for something like thirty years- ah, we attacked the Pearl. But he let us surrender. Pirates don't often do that. Jack was unique, like yer said.

"So for a year I adored him. What a man. Made me so proud. Made me lots of money too. And I thought- suffering from the nautical version of domestic bliss- that he felt the same way too. Not necessarily about me," he added, rather sadly, "no, I never dared hope he'd notice that, but at least about the _Pearl_ and our, our, our family.

"But I started to notice that, even though our missions were successful, we'd always end up battling supernatural forces or huge odds and, well, about half the crew would be killed. So we'd get another crew, and most of them would be killed. I started to realise Jack hadn't allowed us to surrender because he was a gallant- he just didn't care. He didn't give a toss about anyone except," and here Barbossa, labouring under an alcoholic burden, made speech marks with his fingers, "the main characters. The only survivors from our original crew are Ragetti and Pintel, Bootstrap Bill- you may have bumped into him, taciturn bugger these days-, Cotton- the one travelling behind the parrot-, and Marty, the titch. Everyone else was killed when we were snatching some treasure from a bunch of unstoppable terracotta warriors in China."

Barbossa broke off, because the memory of that battle had surfaced like a dead fish in a goldfish bowl. _"Flowerpot men!"_ Jack had yelled. "Wow! I want one!" "Jack, they're pulling the roof in!" "They're so _cute_," Jack had cooed. "Look, they can't bend their elbows! Aww! Barbie, can I have a flowerpot man for my next birthday? When's my birthday?"

He received a kick in the ankle from a four-inch heel court shoe. "Mm?"

"Carry on, then," Lovehaste said impatiently.

He unsteadily poured about half a glass of wine for himself, and a quarter of a bottle for the tablecloth. "Not much left to tell," he said. "I loved him but I started to hate him. When he almost got one of his many girlfriends, Anamaria, killed in battle, because he'd nicked her ship, that was the last straw. I didn't like Ana, obviously, but I thought to myself, 'If that's the way he treats her, how is he going to treat me when the going gets rough?' And one night, when he was very drunk, he teased me about something stupid- something about how he should call the monkey Barbie, I don't remember- and I lost my rag. And, funnily enough, the crew agreed. So we mutinied. End of tale, yo ho ho etc."

He looked at her. "Don't yer _dare_ say, 'I'm sorry'," he snarled. "It had nothing to do with yer then, it has nothing to do with yer now."

She nodded. "Alright."

They sat in silence, and the sun got bored with the lack of conversation and started to go down.

"I should be going," she said, carefully.

Barbossa stretched, got up, hauled her upright by her nose. They started to walk away, she nursing her nose gently.

"Shouldn't we pay the bill?"

He gave her a funny look. "No."

"Ah."

He followed her, as she seemed to know where she was going. He could vaguely recollect she'd assigned herself to some house somewhere, to do some female things for other females. Just as long as she stayed on land, he didn't care if she went and joined Ragetti's mother and Giselle and Scarlet and the girls, as long as she didn't ever expect him to visit her.

She drew to a halt and he walked into her.

Lovehaste coughed. "I guess… this is goodbye."

"Yep." Barbossa wondered how many of his crew were in the smelly authentic pub. The night was still young.

She opened her fan again and Barbossa realised she was crying behind it. Not the usual dramatic tears, but real tears, the tears of someone who is very miserable and can't make the misery go away. He could tell because real tears made her nose snotty. "Er," he said, not sure how to deal with this.

"Though you probably don't care," she gulped, "_I_ think you're a great captain. And I- I think you're going to be just f-f-fine…" She started to sob in earnest. "And I _am_ sorry about Jack Sparrow! I'm sorry that I'm sorry! But I am!"

"There there," he said awkwardly. Why was she saying such a long goodbye? Why didn't they just hurry up and go their separate ways? He was thirsty, _and_ he needed the toilet, or failing that a nice quiet alleyway. Not a good combination.

She visibly pulled herself together, and wiped the excess liquid on a handkerchief. She sighed and tried a watery smile. "Honestly," she said, "you're such a red herring. The genre clearly stated 'Humour / Parody'. Why d'you have to turn it into a tragedy for?"

Barbossa regarded her mildly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know." She smiled a little wider. "Well…"

"Well. It's been…"

"Fun?"

"No."

"Elucidating?"

"No."

"Novel?"

"I think the word I'm looking for is 'disturbing'," Barbossa told her. "Now be on yer way."

She nodded, and put away her fan. "So long… Hector."

Barbossa felt weirdly thrown off balance. Something was happening in his chest- he wondered what it was. "So long… Mariella." Ah, now he knew- it was sadness.

As if in homage to this feeling, he leaned down and gave Mariella Suzella Lovehaste a kiss in the corner of her mouth. Not quite lips, not quite the cheek.

"No!" he burst out, because she seemed to be leaning in for more.

But she wasn't; she was laughing, she was backing away even as he cried out, she was wandering into the night, towards her new future. "I won't forget you," she called over her shoulder, as the shadows cuddled her up and welcomed her home.

"I won't forget yer either," he called back, "although I might try." She didn't answer- perhaps she never heard. "I hope to hell your authoress knows what she's doing to you, Mary Sue Lovehaste," he added, and went in quest of his crew.


	12. endness

It was a fresh, bright day when they set sail, with Lovehaste's neatly written coordinates for the Isla de Muerta.

Barbossa stood at the front of the ship, smiling peacefully, Jack the monkey on his shoulders.

_Well, I've got those coordinates now. What more would I need Jack for?_

True, he wasn't completely persuading himself, but at least he felt slightly better.

One stop at Tortuga, where the crew could spend their tea money in a solid week of debauchery and luxury, and then onto the famed isle, for more money than they could ever dream of. And Barbossa, good old Barbossa, would look after them like his children, without Jack, it was true, but without bloody Lovehaste as well. They'd be one happy, ridiculously rich family, altogether.

What could possibly go wrong?


End file.
